


Romano Tells it Like it is to Small Children

by counterheist



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Blatant lies, Gen, romano has used up a year's worth of wit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-03
Updated: 2011-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-22 20:12:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/613828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/counterheist/pseuds/counterheist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The next time there’s a drawing for who has to look after the micronations at meetings, the world will <b><i>remember</i></b> not to put Romano’s name in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Romano Tells it Like it is to Small Children

“Recognize me!”

“No, recognize _me_.”

“Me!”

“ _I’ve_ already been recognized.”

“No you haven’t!”

“You wish!”

“Liar!”

“So have I!”

“By whom?”

“Everyone recognizes _me_.”

“I’m going to tell England you said that!”

About that point, or perhaps a little earlier, the southern half of Italy contemplated murder for the thirty-third time. Would it be murder if he tossed the little wriggling bastards out the window? Sure they _looked_ like harmless human brats, but they weren’t, Italy Romano knew that as well as anybody. In fact, they weren’t human at all, even if they were still all brats. A little fall from the forty-fifth story might teach them some manners. “Shut up or I’ll toss you all out the window.”

“You can’t do that!”

“I’ll tell Sweden!”

Romano raised one eyebrow slowly and carefully, just like he had practiced every night since the invention of the mirror and many clear mornings beforehand whenever a clear pond had been nearby. “I’ll cut out your tongue first. And then throw you out the window like I said, so sit down and shut up!”

A little girl, dressed in pink, attempted to pull on Romano’s sleeve. She failed, because it is not the lot of the dead to meddle in the affairs of the living ( _not that that stopped the Republic of Rose Island from trying every once in a while_ ). “But Romano, you _can’t_ do that. You’re not strong enough to lift Sealand.”

He didn’t even bother to brush her transparent incorporeal apparition away. “Fuck off.”

“What’s ‘fuck’?”

One of the ones sitting on the floor had asked it, in moronic innocence. Since Romano had better things to do than memorize which pest belonged to which nation, he glanced at the bag of chips at the micronation’s feet and guessed. “It’s a color. Ask America about it the next time you try to visit him at work.”

The brat cocked its head to the side. “Why?”

Romano wondered why _Veneziano_ never had to take care of the micronations. Even when Romano had rigged the draw, Veneziano’s name _still_ hadn’t come up. It wasn’t fair. “Because he’ll give you candy.”

Another of the little bastards pulled on Romano’s leg. “I got you your coffee, Mr. Romano.” And because of the steaming cup in her hand, the little thing was allowed to live after creasing Romano’s suit, which had been tailored just for him in 1903. Works of art didn’t come around every century!

It smelled perfect, and Romano downed it in one gulp. “That’s more like it…”

The little girl fiddled with her paintbrush. “But why did I have to get it from your house?”

“Because the stuff they’ve got here is shit.” The coffee everywhere but at Romano’s house ( _his_ own _, not the one he shared with Veneziano_ ) was shit. Veneziano’s coffee, which should have been less like shit because _technically_ Veneziano was Romano’s other half, was an embarrassment. Sometimes Romano found it difficult to speak to Veneziano because of Veneziano’s Morning Cups of Embarrassment ( _Romano couldn’t even call them by name, they were that disgusting_ ). And then the idiot went and pretended he never noticed that Romano was shunning him.

“Mr. Romano?”

Well. He couldn’t pretend if Romano shunned him by locking him out of the house. Without _breakfast_. Without money! A-and with a sign tied to him that read **don’t feed me anything**! Romano smirked ( _he’d practiced those too_ ). There was no way Veneziano could get out of _that_ one.

Wy took a step backward. “Mr. Romano, can I go now?”

Romano chuckled at thin air.

Thin air materialized into a lonely pink ghost, who tried once more to interfere on the mortal plane by waving her hands through Italy Romano’s torso and whining most impressively. “Romano. She’s asking you a question.”

Romano ignored her on principle.

“Hey! Hey Roma, didn’t you hear what she—” On principle, Romano should have also ignored Seborga, because he lived a lot closer and was still alive. Romano preferred ignoring close, living problems; especially the ones who looked eerily like his brother and him and never shut up. Instead of ignoring, though, this time Romano tossed his used coffee cup in the general direction of Seborga’s face. The chatter stopped, and Romano considered permanently assigning one of his human security detail personnel to the brand new post of Coffee Cup Carrier.

He wondered if the same trick would work on Veneziano. But his wondering was cut short when he finally realized one of the micro-things was trying to get his attention. “What was that?”

The micronation, who looked about six or so in human years, wrung its hands together. “Mr. Roma, is it true that Mr. Germany keeps Recognition of Sovereignty documents in his pants?”

Romano smirked again ( _he was fond of smirking ever since he’d gotten taller and his smirks stopped looking like ‘I am vaguely ill’_ ). “In his disgusting German underwear. France keeps them in his wine bottles.”

“But how could we get them out of the bottles…?”

“Hey guys, how ‘bout we _smash_ them?”

The entire room shook with a chorus of “Yeah!”

“And then we’ll be recognized!”

“Make sure you smash them extra good,” _this_ was for all those years of heckling Romano, and invading him, and being an enormous walking pervert. “Recognition documents can hide sometimes. Really well.”

“They can? But I thought they just were pieces of paper.”

The Republic of Rose Island’s ghost shook her spectral head. “I don’t think you’re telling the truth, Romano.”

The Little Micronation Who Probably Belonged to America spoke up from inside the bag of chips he had crawled into and huh, that one was _definitely_ America’s. “Maybe they’re **magic** pieces of paper.”

“Like England?”

“Is that why they hide in bottles of alcohol?”

“Exactly.” Romano tried to combine a smirk and a grin. It failed, but only the Republic of Rose Island saw the result and she was dead anyway. The other micronations were too excited and stupid to notice. Romano resolved to practice more as soon as he got back to his hotel room.

What appeared to now be A Talking Bag of Chips crumpled over to Romano’s shoes. It sounded like the death of culinary virtue when it spoke. “Does that mean you recognize me as a nation? A fully independent, sovereign nation of equal importance to you but maybe a little bit more because you’re only half of one?”

It crumped away and Romano scowled. The fucking little piece of trash had left a grease stain on his shoe. His _shoe_. “You know what happens to little micronations who don’t fucking shut up and listen to their betters?”

The Bag crinkled. “What?”

The door to the conference room opened and Romano suppressed a shriek by sheer force of pride and scheme. Pride because even though Sweden still terrified Romano, Sweden didn’t need to know that. Scheme because Romano had found a way out of miniature idiot-sitting. “Sweden **kills** them.” He ran as quickly as he could past Sweden, ignoring the tiny screams of horror, and shouted behind him once he was too far away to recall. “All yours.”

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a comment to a reader of Neighborhood Watch. And the book series [Great Lies to Tell Small Kids](http://www.amazon.com/Great-Lies-Tell-Small-Kids/dp/0452286247). On a side note, can't you see N.Italy sitting the micronations down and telling them "Wine makes ~~mommy~~ Veneziano smart! Ve!"?
> 
> Here is the wiki for [Rose Island](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Rose_Island). The Republic of Rose Island is a ghost because 1) it was blown up by the Italian government in 1968, and 2) because. Moral of her story? Don’t mess with the Italy bros’s tourism revenues. Just don’t.


End file.
